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22 February 2019

Here's how it works: The Recent Releases chart brings together critical reaction to new albums from more than 50 sources worldwide. It's updated daily. Albums qualify with 5 reviews, and drop out after 6 weeks into the longer timespan charts.

10.0 |
State

My Bloody Valentine are all about being in the moment. And m b v is a collection of endless moments – gauzy, heady, harmonious moments, with ambiguous song-titles that would befuddle even the most wide-eyed dream popper
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10.050516

10.0 |
The Guardian

The songs on m b v are more melodically complex, intriguing and often pleasing than anything he has written before
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10.050721

10.0 |
Art Rocker

It's not music to listen to, it's music to be with, forcing an emotional reaction from start to finish
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10.050772

10.0 |
Tone Deaf

10.0 |
Consequence Of Sound

m b v creates a new timeline for My Bloody Valentine, and one that recalls the past in a broader and bolder light. They’re better for it, their catalog is stronger for it, and by album’s end, they’re still the best at swirling guitars
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10.050837

10.0 |
Independent on Sunday

mbv leaves all other post-rock experimentalists looking like trivial dilettantes. If jet engines could sing, these would be their hymns
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10.0 |
Pretty Much Amazing

10.0 |
The Skinny

The prevailing feeling is that m b v isn't so much a successor to Loveless; it’s heavier, less immediate, and by the third listen sounds like nothing less than a triumph for Shields
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10.051550

10.0 |
Fact

It’s a reminder that still, after all these years, there are certain things only Shields can do with a guitar
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9.550712

9.5 |
Under The Radar

Twenty-two years in the making or not, this is a return that captivates, excites, and is relentless in its grab for your attention. It's the perfect comeback
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9.550508

9.5 |
BBC

It’s an album that 22 years of speculation and analysis haven’t come close to matching the reality of. It sounds amazing, and represents an astounding return
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9.550638

9.5 |
Paste Magazine

An album that stands as confidently, beautifully and masterfully composed as its predecessor
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9.450751

9.4 |
Sputnik Music (staff)

Make no mistake about it: this album is that rare thing – an actual instance where an unbelievably long gestation period has not resulted in an album being noticeably reduced in quality
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9.150607

9.1 |
Pitchfork

If you're wired a certain way {MBV's} mixture of desire and confusion is easy to map on to the wider world. For 22 years, the only way to get there was through Loveless and its associated EPs; now there's another path, one many of us never expected to find
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9.150515

9.1 |
A.V. Club

Regardless of whether it’s an echo of the past or a bridge to the future, MBV stands as something potentially timeless—and immediately breathtaking
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9.050500

9.0 |
The Line Of Best Fit

It triumphs not as a continuation of a musical conversation that Isn’t Anything and Loveless began, but by forging its own distinct modern dialogue
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9.050657

9.0 |
The 405

m b v accomplishes the rare feat of being both timeless and in-the-moment
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9.050752

9.0 |
music OMH

This is Shields at his most free: from the slow-paced opener to something rather triumphant. God knows how these will sound live
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9.051247

9.0 |
Beats Per Minute

A fully conceptualized 45 minutes of music that both logically progresses the triumphs of its predecessor and doesn’t feel out of place in the musical landscape of 201
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9.051095

9.0 |
Slant Magazine

A few twists and turns shy of perfection, m b v is the innovation and sonic warmth of My Bloody Valentine rekindled and made anew
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8.051029

8.0 |
All Music

They're not trying to re-create Loveless, nor should they, and M B V doesn't have to reinvent music (again) to be worth the wait
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8.051413

8.0 |
Q

Sometimes the songs drag, but the brilliant moments are so brilliant, and the exciting moments to exciting that you'll forgive them. Print edition only

8.051517

8.0 |
Uncut

Although much of mbv could have been recorded a fortnight after Loveless was released, it rarely sounds retro. Print edition only

8.050841

8.0 |
The Observer

This is giddy, cell-purging stuff that thoroughly recalibrates the art of contemporary sound-making, which so often circles the same groove rut
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8.050849

8.0 |
Drowned In Sound

The biggest problem with the album’s extremely likeable first two thirds, is that its comparable cosiness is indisputably eclipsed by the extraordinary trio of songs that close m b v
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8.050791

8.0 |
DIY

Is it better than 'Loveless'? Probably not – and it's unfair to compare it to a predecessor that we've had two decades to live with and love. Given its gestation, it perhaps suffers from being a less cohesive body of work. It doesn't quite hang together as an album
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8.050805

8.0 |
Rolling Stone

Despite the skull-crushing power, MBV is music that rewards close listening, music that takes its time to give up its secrets
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8.0 |
The Independent

8.0 |
Daily Telegraph

If you are a fan - and let’s face it, this is not going to widen their demographic - then have some patience and wait for the postman to bring that vinyl parcel around
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8.050749

8.0 |
NME

The whole experience is like listening to a time-lapse photograph of the inside of Kevin Shields' head
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8.050629

8.0 |
Spin

It sounds an awful lot like prime My Bloody Valentine ... and it is just as gorgeous, just as new, just as now
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8.050660

8.0 |
Entertainment.ie

mbv was never likely to recapture the shock and awe that Loveless delivered some twenty two years ago but in many ways it exceeds what we could reasonably expect after such a protracted absence
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8.050702

8.0 |
No Ripcord

mbv follows its predecessor without aggrandizing its past resources, and as such, delivers a wallop of sweet, sweet distortion in a way that comes naturally to them
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8.051161

8.0 |
The Arts Desk

As beautifully opaque and seductive as Loveless, sounding like nothing other than Kevin Shields’ vision
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7.051156

7.0 |
Blurt

Sticks appropriately close to the tricks that have made the band's past music into magic
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6.550611

6.5 |
PopMatters

Review 1: It’s too early to tell what this record is, how important it is, how good it could really be (7/10). Review 2: Don’t come into m b v expecting another masterpiece. It’s a good album, but not a great one (6/10)
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6.050858

6.0 |
The Scotsman

Only My Bloody Valentine sound like My Bloody Valentine and mbv is resounding confirmation of that at the very least
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